To the editor:

Mr. Garr characterized Rize's opponents as "crackpots" and belittled "Downtown Eastside activists... [for decrying an East Hastings proposal] targeted at people with modest income as "gentrification."

I live in the Downtown Eastside, but I shop in Mount Pleasant. I spoke against the Rize project, largely because the design is damn ugly and too tall for the location.

That height is unnecessary to create density. I come from Paris, one of the densest cities in the Western world where very few buildings are higher than eight storeys. The Lee Building at Main and Broadway has a greater floor space ratio (FSR), one measure of density, than the Rize project yet is less than half the height. There is a dangerous confusion between height and density in this fair city.

Michele Charbonnier, Vancouver